Pleasant Surprises

I love cocktail parties.

Well, technically, this was a 'networking event', but then we'd just be splitting hairs. Besides, it didn't really matter what it was, only who would be attending; and from the look of it, every aspiring model and talent scout in the city was here.

God, where do I even start?, I thought.

Normally at these things, there would be one, maybe two big names, and several smalltown models desperately trying to brown-nose their way into a contract. Becoming the center of attention at those minor get togethers was easy; just a matter of pulling whichever talent scout was being hounded away from the swarm of bimbos. But this was on another level. Talent scouts, models, designers, and even company heads were all in this room. If I could manage to get on just one of their good sides, I'd be set for life.

Can't go wrong with the bar, chimed my natural instinct.

Cocktail parties like this normally had an open bar, where the big name scouts would quietly watch the room to see how people interacted with each other. The more charismatic you were, the better chance you had at getting more than twenty seconds of their time. From there, you basically had it in the bag. At least I did.

I made my way through the crowd of smallfrys and went straight for the shark tank. To my surprise, there was nobody sitting at the bar, every stool was completely empty.

That's odd. Maybe they-

That's when I spotted her. Down at the very end of the bar, was a a young-ish looking woman, somewhere in her mid to late twenties. Strangely, she was wearing a pair of deeply tinted, wraparound sunglasses which covered her eyes, but with a black dress that hugged all the way down her slender form and gave such a generous look of her legs, who cared about what was on her face? She was the only person with her butt in a stool, and currently surrounded by about four snappily dressed men, two blonde women and the bartender, who simply stared while wiping down an already clean wine glass. 

"Hey, girl", said one of the men.

"Hey, h-how are you?", said another in a much less confident voice.

"Let me get you a drink", went a third.

One of the two blonde women piped up.

"She's clearly not into you boys.", the blonde turned to look at the woman in the center of the bunch. "Let's get ourselves a booth and have a little girl talk, hm?"

As she turned her head away from Blondie's offer, I finally noticed the woman's hair. It was a light shade of lavender, with locks that loosely trailed behind her shoulders, and reached halfway down her back.

Good dye job, I thought, trying to think if I'd ever seen her before.

My mind came up blank. There was no fashion figure I could recall who dyed her hair such a distinct color. Whoever she was, she was clearly important enough to have several modelling agents groveling for her attention, which meant she was somebody that I needed attention from. She might not be a talent scout, but if she had enough of a name to get this sort of reaction just by sitting, then she was the kind of person I wanted to be friends with.

But how am I supposed to get her away from all those people? Blondie already tried the 'girl-talk' line. What else can I use? 

For starters, it didn't look like she was enjoying the company of the people surrounding her. She didn't even respond to any of their questions. In fact, she didnt seem to know they were even there.

How can I-

Just then, I spotted a young waiter walk out of a door and head into the next room. In his hands was a tray of wine glasses.